Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I went downstairs to do laundry and found a rather large puddle in the basement, along with signs that it had recently been much larger. *grumble* I can't see any indication of leaks from my own pipes, and the last time this happened it turned out to be a burst pipe next door and water coming under the wall from their basement, so I wonder if that's happened again. A week or so ago I left some water in a shallow plastic tray in the basement so that I could check every so often and make sure the temperature hadn't actually gotten below freezing down there; it's been liquid every time I've looked.

But the water in the pipes is cold enough that the laundry detergent didn't dissolve completely. There was a chunk of it (it started as powder) when I removed the clothes. I've discarded the chunk and am rinsing the clothes again.

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I just got a fake-eBay phishing spam that was good enough for Procmail to actually sort it into my mail-from-eBay folder, which is unusual. But the fact that it was a big ol' ugly HTML message was still a Bright Loud Warning Clue, since eBay sends me plaintext messages on those rare occasions when it has anything to say to me. (It's not like I've been bidding on anything recently, but once in a while policy change announcements show up.) Hey, one more reason to insist that businesses send me plaintext email -- phishers generally rely on hiding the destination URL of a link by making the link text say something innocuous, such as:

<a href="http://203.109.100.33/mumble"> http://scgi.ebay.com/mumble</a>

(and yes, that is the IP address the phisher tried to redirect me to, though I filed off the directory and parameters). To do that, they pretty much have to send an HTML message and hope the victim doesn't look at the source. That trick doesn't work with a plaintext message: the user's mail client (or in my case, telnet client) might recognize a URL and make it clickable, but it's going to go where it looks like it's going[*].

Since I use a non-HTML-aware mail client (SunOS: /usr/bin/mailx, Linux: /bin/mail), when I open an HTML message the source is what I see regardless.

([*] Unless a previous message that contained an executable has altered C:\WinNT\system32\drivers\etc\hosts -- or whatever the path is on your system -- to make "ebay.com" point to the wrong place. And yeah, I specified a Windows path because I'm assuming nobody would read mail like that on a Unix/Linux/OS X machine while logged in as root. Right? [fierce scowl] Right??)

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That "gee I feel crappy but my head isn't splitting so I'm not sure whether it's migraine-related or not" feeling I'd been having Tuesday (and Wednesday)? Well late Thursday afternoon (whether that's "today" or "yesterday" is up to you, your sleep cycle, and your time zone) it turned into "Athena is using my skull to re-enact her birth". [expletive]ing OUCH[*]. Some drugs and a few hours in bed helped a lot -- I pried my eyes open long enough to post that rabbit-hole entry -- but it's coming back now. :-( So I may or may not get around to answering recent comments.

It answers the question anyhow, I guess.

([*] It's the armour that makes it really bad, you know.)

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And in other news, I chickened out and decided not to eat the cupcake. But I wrapped it in plastic and tossed it into the freezer in case I change my mind later.

And in more adorable news, Perrine is hiding under the bags and foam again.

"My wife and I were very shocked but we watched it until the end because we couldn't believe what we were seeing." -- Alan Leigh-Browne, after buying a DVD of The Pajama Game and discovering the disc actually contained Tettone che Passione, "an Italian sex film", instead.

(A wag on the mailing list where I saw the URL (and that quote), responded, "Admit it: Haven't you felt that way about some of the threads on this list lately?", which I thought carried over to LiveJournal as well.)

So ... "social engineering" ... attempting to cause deliberate changes in society ...

[Poll #426821]

Of course, I'm interested in hearing more details on the other "it depends" answers as well, in comments.

A followup question to that poll I just posted:

Does attempting to change enough people's minds to get a candidate you support elected constitute social engineering? Why or why not? Where is the line?